So it came as no surprise to her husband or others in Washington, D.C., that she lobbied state after state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment after both houses of Congress passed it in 1972.

“I see the ERA as legislation that’s as important to the housewife as to the career woman. ... The ERA does not ask us to change our priorities. It gives us the freedom to choose them,” she wrote at the time.

In the end, her efforts fell short — only 30 states ratified; 34 were needed. Her role as an equal rights advocate on Capitol Hill and beyond blossomed nonetheless.

She urged her husband to include women in his Cabinet and possibly select one as his running mate. She was instrumental in an executive order that declared 1975 International Women’s Year.

Mrs. Ford was the first First Lady to publicly voice her opinions and ideologies even when they clashed with her husband’s, said Donna Lehman, archives specialist at the Gerald Ford Library in Ann Arbor.

“In her very first press conference, Sept. 4, 1976, she’s already talking about abortion and the ERA and the press is totally unaccustomed to this,” Lehman said. “They think she’s going to talk about where she shops, but she’s in there right from the get-go.”

Her frank and outspoken nature earned her high approval ratings — and plenty of critics.

During the 1976 presidential election, supporters wore buttons that proclaimed “Betty’s Husband for President” and “Keep Betty in the White House.” Conversely, she pointed out more than once, “I’m the only First Lady to ever have a march organized against her.”

That protest occurred after a “60 Minutes” interview with Morley Safer in which she stated premarital sex might lower the divorce rate, she probably would have tried marijuana had she been growing up in the 1970s and “... the best thing in the world was when the Supreme Court voted to legalize abortion, and in my words, bring it out of the back woods and put it in the hospitals, where it belonged. I thought it was a great, great decision.”

President Ford quipped that he appreciated her candor because, at least for a while, it shifted the focus away from him and onto her.

“She had a real strong belief in equal rights for women,” the president said of his wife in an interview in the mid-1990s. “That is strong character evidence of a lady that I tremendously admire.”

“Even though she may not have intended it, her whole life from the White House on became advocacy for women in one way or another,” said Lehman.

After her mastectomy in 1975, she became a crusader for mammograms and breast self-exams. According to a 1987 article in The Journal of the National Archives, she received 55,800 cards in response to her openness about her breast cancer.

COMPLETE COVERAGE

After her treatment for drug and alcohol dependency in 1978, she set out to create a rehabilitation center that catered to women. The Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage has a women’s wing and a men’s wing, unlike her own experience in Long Beach Naval Hospital’s Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Service where she often was the only woman in many of her support meetings and group therapy sessions.

“For me, Mrs. Ford’s story very much mirrors the story of women and the women’s movement coming of age in the ’70s,” Lehman said.

During and after her time as First Lady, Mrs. Ford also championed the Washington Hospital for Sick Children, which treated abused and mentally impaired children.

“My dedication to the cause of human rights was probably sparked by the independent, caring women who have filled my life,” Ford wrote in her book, “Betty, A Glad Awakening,”

Nancy Brinker, founder of Susan G. Koman for the Cure, which raises money for breast cancer research, called Mrs. Ford “one of the real trailblazers to demonstrate how to lead a successful life with many, many roles to fill.”